Today’s second South American band is Cultura Tres, who hail from Venezuela. Their second album is “El Mal del Bien.”

The album opens with “Propiedad de Dios” which immediately brings to mind a slow, dark Alice In Chains sound. The similarity quickly dissipates, however, as the music suddenly becomes heavier than anything in the AIC catalog, and the vocals take on a harsher aspect than either Layne or Jerry ever put to disc. They never entirely shake the comparison, but they certainly head in a different direction.

Half the song titles on the album appear to be in Spanish, and half in English. The lyrics though, even on the Spanish-titled songs, appear to be mostly in English. This makes me extremely happy, because “El Mal del Bien” is quite a surprise hit with me.

I feel blind-sided by how magnificent this album sounds. It feels remarkably fresh and original (I cannot think of anything that sounds quite like it, other than the vague AIC essence) and the production is very clear and punchy. The heavy moments are pretty heavy and, in between, there are lots of quieter parts that are emphasized by the clear production. Normally I get bored with passages like these, but here they just sound so natural and captivating that I do not skip past them. They mention ISIS as an influence, and I can see why.

“El Mal del Bien” just keeps getting better. As if it did not stand well enough on its own, they close out the album with a cover of “Black Sabbath.” Obviously, nothing will ever come close to the original Black Sabbath version, but this one seriously blows away every other cover version I have heard (sorry Pete.)

Cultura Tres have one hell of an album on their hands here. I figured I would not get into it because it would be in Spanish, but I was so seriously wrong. “El Mal del Bien” is a killer album, and I recommend it to all fans of heavy music. You need to go check these guys out now!